


Us

by Kucherovsbitch



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Soft Boys, Tampa Bay Lightning, bolts - Freeform, kuch likes to paint, lotta love, stammer never knocks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26860222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kucherovsbitch/pseuds/Kucherovsbitch
Summary: Nikita never worries about what anyone thinks because nobody will see it.. right? Until Steven walks in and sees what he’s done that is.
Relationships: Nikita Kucherov/Steven Stamkos
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Us

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by that one picture of Stammer and Kuch holding the cup together.

Nikita doesn't worry about anything when he’s painting, nobody knows he paints and he likes it that way. His own getaway, something outside of hockey and the boys. He never worried about what anybody would think, until Steven walked in and sees what Nikita’s done to the wall. Because yes, it's technically the spare room wall, yet no matter how many times Nikita insists to himself that the space is a spare room he seems to find a lot of the captain’s things in there. But then Steven walks in while Nikita is in the middle of painting, saying something about being sorry for not knocking on the front door along with something about lunch and then cutting off mid-sentence, and Nikita thinks,  shit, I fucked up  .

Nikita’s just about to open his mouth to say,  Sorry, Stammer, I didn’t think you were coming over- I’ll paint over it later  when he notices Steven’s face doesn’t exactly look confused or weirded out. He looks...amazed, maybe. Nikita could swear his eyes are a bit shiny.

“Is that.. us and the cup?” Steven asks, quietly, referring to the Stanley Cup being held by none other than what seemed to be both of them that Nikita had painted on the wall of the room, and Nikita knows, no matter what secrets he reveals by telling Steven the truth, he has to be honest.

“It is,” he says. “I was thinking about how we won, and, well, everyone is thinking of Pointer and Heddy. They’re the names you hear, the reasons we won, and they were huge for us, we know that. But you were huge for us too.. for  me , you put things over the edge without even being on the ice.” Nikita takes a deep breath. “I wanted to paint something meaningful to me and the best way I could show that is  us and the cup.”

Steven is staring at him one moment, and in the next their lips are connected. Nikita’s pretty sure there are no fireworks, but he wouldn’t swear to that. Kissing Steven is like a cool breeze on a hot day, like coming home. It’s relief, a glass of water to a parched throat, like his lips have been waiting his whole life to meet Steven’s, and maybe, Nikita thinks, they have. Maybe tearing his shoulder, going through the rehab, moving to Tampa Bay, resigning and just being here wasn’t as bad as it seemed at first, if it brought him to Steven.

“You know,” Steven says when they pull apart, “people are going to wonder  who painted that up there if they ever see it.”

Nikita’s eyes widen. “Shit, Stammer, you’re right, I-I didn’t think--I’ll paint over it--” The boy’s opinions on Kuch are eccentric enough as it is, they call him a bear, the distant one of the group, the one with the hidden ego, which couldn’t be further from the truth, and now Nikita’s just plastered Steven, the cup and himself on a wall in his house--

“Don’t you dare”, Steven interrupts. “This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen Kuch.”

Nikita flushes somewhat red and that’s a shame, he thinks to himself, as he tries to come up with ways to make Steven say that again in the future.


End file.
